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100Was Wittgenstein Frege's heir?Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196): 289-308. 1999.This paper argues that Dummett’s interpretation of the relationship between Frege’s anti-psychologism and Wittgenstein’s doctrine that meaning is use results in a misreading of Frege. It points out that anti-mentalism is a form of anti-psychologism, but that mentalism is not the only version of psycholgism. Thus, while Frege and Wittgenstein are united in their opposition to mentalism, they are not equally opposed to psychologism, and from Frege’s point of view, the doctrine that meaning is use …Read more
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133A Pinch of Salt for FregeSynthese 150 (2): 209-228. 2006.Michael Dummett has argued that a formal semantics for our language is inadequate unless it can be shown to illuminate to our actual practice of speaking and understanding. This paper argues that Frege’s account of the semantics of predicate expressions according to which the reference of a predicate is a concept (a function from objects to truth values) has exactly the required characteristics. The first part of the paper develops a model for understanding the distinction between objects and co…Read more
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140The Context Principle and Dummett's Argument for Anti-realismTheoria 71 (2): 92-117. 2005.Dummettian anti-realism–the refusal to endorse bivalence–is generally thought to be associated with idealism This paper argues that this is only true of the position developed by early Dummett. In a later manifestation Dummettian anti-realism is better thought of as providing the logic for anti-realisms of an error theoretic kind. Early on Dummett distinguished deep from shallow arguments for giving up bivalence: deep arguments followed a strong ‘sufficiency’ reading of Frege’s context principle…Read more
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184On the Error of Treating Functions as ObjectsAnalysis and Metaphysics 15. 2016.In his late fragment, ‘Sources of Knowledge of Mathematics and Natural Sciences’ Frege laments the tendency to confuse functions with objects and says, ‘It is here that the tendency of language by its use of the definite article to stamp as an object what is a function and hence a non-object, proves itself to be the source of inaccurate and misleading expressions and also of errors of thought. Probably most of the impurities that contaminate the logical source of knowledge have their origins in …Read more
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2Marilyn Friedman and Jan Narveson, Political Correctness: For and Against Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 15 (4): 241-243. 1995.
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80When is a contract theorist not a contract theorist? Mary Astell and Catharine Macaulay as critics of Thomas HobbesIn Nancy Hirschmann Joanne Wright (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes, Penn State. pp. 169-89. 2012.Although Catharine Macaulay was a contract theorist and early feminist her philosophy is not based on a concept of liberty like that of Hobbes, but on a notion of individual liberty as self government close to that accepted by Mary Astell. This raises the question of whether criticisms of liberal feminism which assume that it is rooted in Hobbes's suspect notion of freedom and consent may miss there mark.
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61A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700Cambridge University Press. 2009.This ground-breaking book surveys the history of women's political thought in Europe from the late medieval period to the early modern era. The authors examine women's ideas about topics such as the basis of political authority, the best form of political organisation, justifications of obedience and resistance, and concepts of liberty, toleration, sociability, equality, and self-preservation. Women's ideas concerning relations between the sexes are discussed in tandem with their broader politic…Read more
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11Review of Engaging with Irigaray ed. Carolyn Burke, Naomi Shor and Margaret Whitford (review)International Studies in Philosophy 31. 1999.
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61A Moral Philosophy of Their Own? The Moral and Political Thought of Eighteenth-Century British WomenThe Monist 98 (1): 89-101. 2015.Despite the fact that the High-Church Tory, Mary Astell, held political views diametrically opposed to the Whiggish Catharine Trotter Cockburn and Catharine Macaulay, it is here argued that their metaethical views were surprisingly similar. All were influenced by a blend of Christian universalism and Aristotelian eudaimonism, which accepted the existence of a law of nature, that we strive for happiness, and that happiness results from living in accord with our God-given nature. They differed wit…Read more
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36Liberty and Virtue in Catherine Macaulay's Enlightenment PhilosophyIntellectual History Review 22 (3): 411-426. 2012.Argues that like more conservative feminist writers, Gabrielle Suchon and Mary Astell, writing earlier in the Eighteenth Century, Macaulay's concept of liberty is closely tied to virtue and involves free self government according to reason. Unlike these earlier writers from this concept of liberty she deduces the rationality of democratic republican government. Thus the grounds on which she builds her republicanism involve a very different concept of rational self interest to that usually assume…Read more
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52Does science persecute women? The case of the 16th–17th century witch-HuntsPhilosophy 73 (2): 195-217. 1998.I. Logic, rationality and ideology Herbert Marcuse once claimed that the ‘“rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.’ He echoed a widespread folk belief that a world in which people were rational would be a better world. This could be taken as an optimistic empirical conjecture: if people were more rational then probably the world would be a better place (a trust that ‘virtue will be rewarded’, so to speak). However, it…Read more
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136Prostitution, Exploitation and TabooPhilosophy 64 (250). 1989.It is so generally accepted that prostitution is immoral, that this is one of the least discussed of all ethical issues. Few serious philosophical treatments of the subject have been published. Of these, at least one, Lars Ericsson's, ‘Charges against Prostitution’, throws into stark relief the apparent inconsistency of our community attitudes. For it demonstrates that, from the point of view of the simple free market liberalism, to which many subscribe, there is nothing immoral about prostituti…Read more
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1Brooke A. Ackerly, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 22 (1): 1-3. 2002.
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15The woman of reason: feminism, humanism, and political thoughtContinuum. 1995.This is a timely re-appraisal of feminist political thinkers and their male contemporaries, providing a re-evaluation of feminist humanism.
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1Will the real Enlightenment historian please stand up? Catharine Macaulay versus David HumeIn Stephen Buckle Craig Taylor (ed.), Hume and the Enlightenment, Pickering & Chatto. 2011.Argues that on an interpretation of the Enlightenment which emphasises its radical potential and importance for the development of democracy Catharine Macaulay should be recognised as a more centrally Enlightenment historian than David Hume.
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48Psychologism and anti-realismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (4). 1986.This Article does not have an abstract
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97Freud, wollstonecraft, and ecofeminismEnvironmental Ethics 16 (2): 117-134. 1994.I examine recent arguments to the effect that there are significant logical, conceptual, historical, or psychosexual connections between the subordination of women and the subordination of nature and argue that they are all problematic. Although there are important connections between women’s emancipation and the achievement of important environmental goals, they are practical connections rather than conceptual ones
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88Was Searle's Descriptivism Refuted?Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 17 (1): 109-13. 1998.It is generally thought that Searle 's cluster theory of the sense of a proper name was soundly refuted by Kripke in Naming and Necessity. This paper challenges this widespread belief and argues that the observations made by Kripke do not show that Searle 's version of descriptivism is false. Indeed, charitably interpreted, Searle 's theory retains considerable plausibility
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12Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration: Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800 (edited book)Springer. 2007.This volume challenges the view that women have not contributed to the historical development of political ideas, and highlights the depth and complexity of women’s political thought in the centuries prior to the French Revolution. From the late medieval period to the enlightenment, a significant number of European women wrote works dealing with themes of political significance. The essays in this collection examine their writings with particular reference to the ideas of virtue, liberty, and to…Read more
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47Rousseau's womenInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 4 (1). 1996.Abstract Feminists have interpreted Rousseau's attitudes to women as characteristic of a patriarchal ideology in which passion, nature and love are associated with the feminine and repressed in favour of masculine reason, culture and justice. Yet this reading does not cohere with Rousseau's adulation of nature, nor with the repression of writing and culture in favour of natural speech which Derrida finds in his texts. This paper uses Rousseau's accounts of his personal experiences to resolve thi…Read more
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From Le Miroir des dames to Le Livre des trois vertusIn Karen Green & Mews Constant J. (eds.), Virtue Ethics for Women 1250-1550, Springer. 2011.
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15Logical renovations: restoring Frege's functionsPacific Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4): 315-334. 1992.Argues that because Frege's semantic ideas were introduced into analytic philosophy of language by Russell and Carnap the general understanding of his distinction between sense and reference has been severely misrepresented.
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96The Passions and the Imagination in Wollstonecraft's Theory of Moral JudgementUtilitas 9 (3): 271. 1997.According to Wollstonecraft. This suggests that for her ethical judgement is based on reason, and so she is an ethical cognitivist. This impression is upheld by the fact that she clearly believes in the existence of ethical truth and has little sympathy with subjectivism. At the same time, she places a great deal of importance on the role of the emotions in ethical judgement. This raises the question how the emotions can be relevant if ethics consists in a realm of truths, discoverable by reason…Read more
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Brooke A. Ackerly, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (review)Philosophy in Review 22 1-3. 2002.
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12Virtue Ethics for Women 1250-1550 (edited book)Springer. 2011.This book locates Christine de Pizan's argument that women are virtuous members of the political community within the context of earlier discussions of the relative virtues of men and women.
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What Were the Ladies in the City of Ladies Reading? The Libraries of Christine de Pizan’s ContemporariesMedievalia Et Humanistica 36 77-100. 2010.
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |